And the argument from ignorance continues.

All I have to say is read more and be online less.

So… No, it’s not like Russia at all. But that nuance is too long for me to explain right now. Short answer is that Russia is capitalist, and China is 50/50 capitalist/socialist, depending on definitions, and yeah a lot of nuance.

But China is run by the people, their authoritarian politics keeps their billionaires and induatry in check. Their local politics is a negotiation with the national politics.

And… How exactly is China antagonizing nations abroad? Because a lot of countries are choosing to work with China because they AREN’T antagonizing them as much as America and Europe. So… The reality is the opposite.

I found this to be a decent enough primer: https://medium.com/@bobbyarlan/a-case-study-in-racist-anti-chinese-sentiment-fuelled-by-american-bots-and-western-propaganda-f0a69978d568

A decent TLDR: The article argues that anti-Chinese propaganda spread by the U.S. and Western media is fueling racist sentiment. Claims of mass detention of Uyghurs are based on flawed studies and sources like Adrian Zenz, a far-right Christian fundamentalist. Atrocity propaganda is a common tactic used by the U.S. to justify wars. The U.S. is threatened by China’s economic rise and technological progress, so it is trying to portray China negatively and prepare public opinion for a potential conflict. However, most of the world sees China positively and as an economic opportunity, making a new Cold War against China unlikely to succeed

In short, a lot of information about China that has come out of Western news media has been proven to be based on known biased sources, known anit-China rhetoric, and/or outright lies. It’s difficult to prove/disprove of any information specifically, that takes time and reporting, but a lot of people see the anti-China pattern in BBC reporting, and tend to dismiss it because of known history.

The people you wish to dunk on built this platform. Feel free to leave…

I’ve reconsidered my use of the term brainwashing. I think this explanation is a good one:

https://redsails.org/masses-elites-and-rebels/

But yeah the bootlickers sure feels like they are brainwashed.

++1 TikTok is only political because Americans want to own everyone’s data exclusively.

You noted that the ballot box is the best way to do this, but that we also have to eat the rich. The big problem is that the ballot box is controlled by the rich. Both sides of the I’ll are paid off by corporate interests… And they don’t care about climate change…

The ONLY solution is to EAT THE RICH… The ballot box will actually be taken care of when corporations can’t pay off politicians anymore.

You’re missing the forest for the trees. Why do people drink Coke products? Well once upon a time they were filled with cocaine! But now they’re only filled with tons of sugar and caffeine, those are only the two most addictive legal substances besides tobacco and alcohol, which are simply more regulated than sugar and caffeine.

I’m not saying that people should not try to self-regulate drinking Coke. But I am saying that you will never, ever fix this problem by convincing individuals to drink less Coke. Especially since it’s not just about Cola, it’s about literally everything you do.

If you live in the suburbs, you absolutely have to use a car to get around. If you aren’t rich you cannot afford and ev, and if you want a cheap ev you won’t get much range or convenience (thought that is changing painfully slowly).

And you can’t live downtown if you have kids, or if you can’t afford the high rents or condo prices… so if you don’t have a lot of money, you then have to live in the poor run-down suburban neighborhood, which is a food desert. Now your only choices for food are Dollar general, Wallmart, or corner stores that have bars on the window because they are broken into so often.

Those people do not have a choice, they have to live in the world that they live in. In fact, we all do. Even having a choice to buy high quality products is a luxury.

The politicians on the ballot have all been given vast sums of money by organizations that sell you stuff. Politicians don’t have to listen to you, they have other priorities.

Can you find a company that is not greenwashing? But is actually trying to make sustainable change?

And does that company eventually get bought by one of these larger corporations that don’t give a shit?

Good luck voting with your wallet, you can spend a dozens and dozens of hours trying to find a clothing company that isn’t using child slavery… only for their use of child slavery to just be covered up really well, and actually they are the same as everyone else…

Could you completely avoid buying Coke products? Sure. But then again, you can’t control all of the restaurants that provide it by default, and it’s such a cheap product that it doesn’t require a lot of sales to be worth it.

Do you know what business idea doesn’t work so well? Creating products that cost more but are no better than any other products, but at least you aren’t using child slavery and environmentally destroying tactics! But then again, nobody can actually afford your product because most people are actually quite poor. Even if they wanted to, they couldn’t by your stuff. So since your prices are going to be high anyway, you market to only rich people. But then again, most of those rich people don’t have the time or energy or even care about how green your product is, therefore it’s just bad business to spend more caring about how green your product is. Once you become a public company, nobody cares about anything except for your profits and stock price (usually based on your current or projected profits…). So… You ditch the green thing… There’s no incentive to be green, at all.

Trust me I’m trying, and it takes those dozens of hours to figure out that there’s even a problem like this, let along finding even 1 company or politician that isn’t contributing to the problem…

But… Being more green requires buying and using less things, which is bad for the economy. Unfortunately we cannot just switch to green energy, we have to drive less, consume less, etc.

And who do you think is going to push back on that? How about the people who sell us stuff…

And how much money do you have to donate to politicians? Because it’s probably not billions of dollars… but they have it, and they will use it.

I am not saying we should not try, but I am saying that we shouldn’t ask, we should demand, that things change. But when politicians won’t listen to you because of the fat stacks of cash stuffed in their ears… We will inevitably be closer to step 3, and if that happens, we’d better be organized and ready to build something better.

Sorry for the wall, I see a lot of misconceptions about this stuff…

I’m not convinced this is true for most people.

YOU may be conscious enough to understand not to buy a large vehicle because of emissions, bust MOST people do fall for marketing after a long enough period of time of being exposed. Think about ALL the F-150’s you see (In my area they are everywhere) that have NOTHING in the back. NOTHING. Not towing ANYTHING. I have an EV hatchback & a wagon with a mid-sized trailer. I’ve done WAY more backyard projects than the vast majority of the people in suburbia. We’ve used excavators, built multiple 30 ft retaining walls, a 12x12 shed, and we plan on doing more. I will never need a truck because I can tow 2000 lbs in my wagon, which is more than 99.9% of people need.

Most “normal” people that I talk to, and that’s all we have if we’re not looking for people who are on the internet a lot, most of them think their truck is really convenient. They get a full sized cab that holds their whole family, they get that truck bed that they throw a toolbox and once in a while, and the truck can tow 10,000 lbs even though they literally don’t even own a trailer hitch and don’t know how it works.

Trucks are just the replacement SUVs, oversized cars that marketing has determined is the “american car”. You can do anything in a truck! Or you can do the vast majority of things in a Toyota Corolla too, but those aren’t “cool”.

Marketing works dam well, Apple owns the high and computer market even though we know that they screw over customers by making their products impossible to repair (literally, there’s software preventing it). Ford sells the most vehicles and america through the F-150, which I already established is something most people don’t need but buy anyway. The vast majority of people do not even need a single family home. How many backyards go completely un-maintained? How many older couples live in a 4 bedroom house because… That’s just what they are used too… We could have more middle housing for people who want space, but not a backyard, but they don’t exist. You literally can’t vote with your wallet to buy the housing you want if you don’t want a single family home (Or a crazy expensive condo downtown, or to rent the rest of your life…)

And lastly, when your driving on the road in a little ev hatchback like me, you become painfully aware about how gigantic all of the trucks and suvs are around you. You realize that at any moment if somebody takes a wrong turn you are probably dead. Most people become very uncomfortable with that, and they get a bigger car, as big as they can afford, to prevent that feeling.

And we’ve just talked about cars and living situations, how do you vote with your wallet when every single product is made by child labor in a country being exploited by america? Can you trust when a company tells you that it doesn’t do that? How much greenwashing exists?

No, car companies marketed big cars that are less efficient. They did this because using more gas is good for the “economy”. It is good for business to spend a lot of money on big cars that take a lot of gas. There has absolutely been times in our history where our energy regulations were higher and our cars were more efficient and everyone was happy with it.

Think about it, why do marketing departments even exist if people are going to theoretically buy and demand what they want anyway? I’m too young to remember when commercials basically just explained what a product was and what it does. Nowadays, commercials are trying to get you to feel something, not explain something. Advertisement online are trying to be splashy and catch your attention, not be useful and tell you what you’re going to get.

Any marketing department should be able to explain that they try to get people to by their products for reasons other than customer demand.